Flash – Introduction and Startup

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Flash – Introduction and Startup

• Many times on websites you will see animations of various sorts

• Many of these are created with and viewed with a program called Macromedia Flash or Flash plugin viewer.

• Each of these animations are called movies and are saved in two forms: the editable form ending in .fla and the form you view ending in .swf


Flash - Introduction and Startup

• Flash comes as part of the suite of programs known as Dreamweaver.

• To start it go to Start, Programs and choose Macromedia Flash

• You should see this screen



• There are many parts of this screen however the most important part of the screen is the large white part in the center

• This is often referred to as the stage area

• The second most important area is the scale running across the top – it is called the timeline



• As you know all cartoons are a series of pictures called frames

• Each unit on the timeline is a frame in a movie or animation

• Flash lets you control each frame and what goes in it



• For instance, let’s draw something – a simple shape like a ball and then move it around the screen

• First we select the frame we want to work in. In this case we need the first frame and that one is automatically selected by Flash because it is a new file



• Now go to the Toolbox on the left and choose the Oval tool (it actually looks like a circle but it can so both)



• Next we have to choose a color for the shape

• First set the color of the stroke or outline to none

• This is done by clicking on the down triangle in the color square and choose the “No color” box for the outline or stroke



• Now go to the Fill box just below and choose any color you like for the Fill color



• Now drag across a small area in the upper left of the stage area to make a small circle

• Now let’s draw the second frame, but we don’t have to redraw the ball.

• There is a short cut.



• Right click on the second frame in the timeline

• Choose Insert Keyframe

• This choice will copy the first frame into the second in the same position

• Make sure you choose Keyframe as this is the choice which will duplicate the previous frame



• Now select the Arrow tool and click on the ball you created.

• Then drag it to the bottom of the stage.

• Repeat this procedure until you have four or five frames



• Try out your movie by pressing the Enter key or going to the Control menu and choosing Play

• Warning your movie will play very fast and you may not see much

• To control the speed go to the Modify option and chose the movie choice



• Now change the frame rate to 6 or 8 instead of 12 which is the default.

• Say OK

• Now play the movie (by pressing Enter) and you should see a bouncing ball

• It may not be very smooth but don’t worry we will smooth that out later

• For now save your work



• To save your file, go to the File menu and choose the Save As option because it is the first time you have saved the file

• Notice you are saving the file in .fla form

• This is the form which you can reload and edit

• To save a completed file in the form you can use on the web you choose the File menu form but the Export Movie option

• Give the file a name and save in an appropriate folder.


Super Giant Big Fun Assignment

• Start up the program Macromedia Flash

• Draw a circle in the upper left hand corner

• Fill it with the color of your choice and make sure there is no stroke color

• Add several keyframes which will make the ball bounce up and down across the screen

• Make sure you slow the frame rate down so that we can see the ball bounce

• Save your work as an .fla file AND a .swf file

• Now you can proudly display it the FST so he can TICK YOU OFF.

Documents

Flash – Introduction and Startup